Medicine Fiddle transcript
MEDICINE FIDDLE
A film by Michael Loukinen
Transcription by Beverly Patterson
The film opens with an outdoor scene: Lawrence Houle playing his fiddle and dancing—the lone figure in a pasture--a bale of hay in the background.
SCROLLING TEXT Fiddling and step dancing were introduced to Native peoples by French fur traders in the late 1600s, and by Irish and Scottish trappers and lumber jacks during the late 1700s and early 1800s. Intermarriage produced descendants of mixed blood who carried on these music and dance traditions at lumber camps, house parties and tribal celebrations. Reflecting both European and Native influence, this hybrid fiddling and dancing culture moved westward with the fur trade from Ontario across the northern United States and Canada.
Four unnamed members of the Waupoose family—mother, daughter, and two sons-- appear in the film. In the transcript they are identified as M (mother), D (daughter), and S1 and S2 (sons 1 and 2).
M WAUPOOSE He said nobody taught him how to play. He said what he used to do, he used to take his violin, he said, because the old Indians always said there was music in the air. So, he used to go out in the woods with his violin, and he used to play. He said, you could hear that music. And he could play violin, that's where he learned music from the woods, he said, from the trees. And he's living yet that old man. If he was here, he would tell you the same thing. He would tell you a lot of Indian stories about music.
S1 WAUPOOSE Two guys were fishing, one was a senator, he was fishing on a reservation, and they were, I'd say a good--oh, I like to brag a little bit--I'd say they were good 10 miles away. But they were sitting on that stream and there was a fire going and the senator was sitting there, and they were having their meal. This senator asked this Indian, he said to the guide, he said, "Where do I hear that music coming from?" "Oh," he said, "About the old South Branch dance hall." "My God," he said, "I thought that man was playing right here." It was my father playing 10 miles away.
S2 WAUPOOSE You know, he just about knew where he was gonna play. So he adjusted his sound post on his violin. So the music would carry.
M WAUPOOSE Yeah.
S1 WAUPOOSE Down the river or what have you, don't know.
M WAUPOOSE All the people would sit around the lake, that was a big lake too, and they could hear that music just good. They said that just carried over the water. In the evening the people would sit down and listen to them play around the lake.
03:59
In the woods, Coleman Trudeau playing “Maple Sugar.”
04:30
The Waupoose family stands in the woods near a lake, posing for photographer, one son holding a fiddle and one holding a guitar.
INTERVIEWER How many children did you have?
M WAUPOOSE I had twenty. Yeah. I don't know, how many have I got living now?
D WAUPOOSE Fourteen.
M WAUPOOSE Fourteen.
INTERVIEWER Did you have some fiddle music in your house?
M WAUPOOSE Yes. Lot of music.
S1 WAUPOOSE My grandfather there used to work in the woods. He'd go up north, they'd stay all winter. Then different ones would come in there, start playing instruments And Grandpa Dave, he gradually picked that up. And a lot of the stuff that he played--was the majority, I'd say-- I'd say about 80% of it was that--was his own music. But then they entwined with the music that they heard at the camps.
05:26
Mike Page playing fiddle. Historic photos.
INTERVIEWER Were there some good step dancers out in the camps?
STEVE SOULIERE Oh, yes. Every Saturday night. Every Saturday night, there was a little, there was a step dancer, the Frenchman. His nose was a bigger mine, but he was a good step dancer.
06:33
Fiddle music accompanying a series of historic photos of fiddlers and loggers.
DICK GRAVELLE My grandfather, I think he played this tune. [plays tune] I don't know the name of it. And I don't even know what my dad was singing about when he was singing it in French. My grandfather, a Quebec Frenchman, and my dad was from him, and my mother is Indian, Chippewa Indian. That makes me French Indian.
07:48
Frank Allery plays fiddle with unidentified musicians playing guitars, keeping rhythm with their feet.
FRANK ALLERY I should have been a drum player, you know, beating the drum instead of being a violin player because I'm so close to being a full-blooded Indian. And there's the proof right here, this is my grandmother. She's a registered ward of the government, full blooded Chippewa Indian.
09:01
DICK GRAVELLE They called it Si’s tune. And some other ones even called it Dick’s tune, but it wasn't. It was Si’s. [Plays tune] It was on the 4th of July, and I went swimming on down Sugar Island there. And I remember my mother telling me, "Well, you better get home early before dark." So, I left at the swimming hole and went, started back and I was coming up the, there was a one highway and there was a front path where the people lived, nobody lived on the highway. And I thought, for sure, I'm not coming through there. It'd be shorter, but what about a bear? So, I started to come up the front path and there was a bunch of people standing near a house and the windows and the doors were open, and boy, I could hear a fiddle playing there. [Plays tune] It was an old Indian playing that fiddle. And that was a, I had never saw the man before. But if, because I asked, who was that old man? They said, "Oh, he lives at the reservation Garden River." Well, I said, "Boy does that fella ever play!" And the things that he did there it still bothers me. It still yet today. And it sure did bother me after that. It bothered me all that night. Even after I got home, I tried to get it on the fiddle that my dad had, but that was the old man and his name was Simon Mass an Indian from Garden River Reservation. And that really made me--I had to get rid of it. I had to do something about it. So, when I was about 10 years old and well, I thought, well that's gonna be the time I'm gonna, I'm gonna conquer that thing from my own feelings anyway. Because I remember when I was smaller and my dad had that fiddle hung up at the end of his bed on the wall and he used to tell me, "Don't you ever touch that thing." Well, I used to be standing on the bed and I remember when he wouldn't be home, I'd take it down and just even the purest sound of that thing on the bed. And I was real careful of it because I know it was precious, and I'd hang it up to make sure he never found out that I touched it.
12:08
Lawrence Houle, seated outdoors, playing fiddle and tapping feet.
S1 WAUPOOSE And my dad would go in the bedroom, and he'd play, you know, after work, there was no TV them days or, but my father, he'd come home and have his supper, and I don't know if he used to get lonesome or what for his dad or his brothers or what have you. Or they'd take his violin down and he'd go play in the bedroom. In the meantime, my older brothers, they made banjo out of round oatmeal boxes.
M WAUPOOSE Cigar boxes.
S1 WAUPOOSE Cigar boxes. And they put the fish line on there, you know, but they never went in the bedroom where my father was playing, they'd be sitting in the front room and my dad would be playing in there and they'd, you know, kinda keeping time with him there.
D WAUPOOSE He always took the bow like that, and he'd hit the floor. And when he hit the floor, we knew we had to jig whether we knew how or not. And I started when I was about four years old, when I'd listen to my father play violin music. I would sit there and automatic my foot would start beating and my dad knew I had music in me. So, then he'd start, and he'd hit the floor with his bow like that and I knew I had to get out there and jig. And if I didn't, I got the razor strap. So that I started jigging when I was about four years old to his music.
S2 WAUPOOSE I guess he bought it when it was years ago for $15 is it not? And he fixed it up so it could sound louder than a normal violin. And what he'd done, he put porcupine quills inside the box of the violin and he put a deer bone up here at the neck for the strings to rest on. "Got Indian medicine on there," he said.
M WAUPOOSE And never--nobody could ever touch that violin when he was living. He was real particular about that.
S2 WAUPOOSE You know, it was just like, for me, be picking up an egg and it was so delicate to me. It meant a lot.
14:59
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN SPEAKING TO CROWD Would everyone please, stand up. Continues speaking in native language.
Outdoor Event at the GARDEN RIVER RESERVATION, ONTARIO, CANADA]
ANNOUNCER At this time, I'll let Frank Boyer take over.
FRANK BOYER JR Well folks, a great day and good afternoon to you. We've got some exceptional talent, folks. We've got some good step dancers, and we're gonna put on a good show here. And have yourselves a good time folks.
16:27
Four women dance on stage accompanied by fiddle and guitars.
YOUNG WOMAN Oh, I learned my step dancing from my grandmother and my aunties here, my mom. They used to take me to socials when I was younger and I'd sit and watch them and she'd take me in the kitchen while she was cooking and she'd listen to the music and dance around. And my dad used to play guitar. So every Sunday we'd have dances, you know, just before we'd go off.
INTERVIEWER A picnic?
YOUNG WOMAN Yeah, go off on a picnic. He'd play the guitar and we'd have to dance or else we couldn't go play.
Steve Souliere playing fiddle accompanying women and children dancing.
YOUNG WOMAN But I do take a lot of my moves from my dancing that I do in the powwow arena. Sometimes at powwows, like in the evening after the drumming closed up, we have jigs and dances after then, like in the evening time for the adults. And we have different fiddlers from all over the place because powwows attract people from like all over the area. So, you usually can just call people from the audience and they'll come up and play.
18.22
FRANK BOYER JR Okay folks, here we go.
Frank Boyer Jr, fiddle, and unidentified guitarists accompany dancers.
Conversation with unidentified women at the event.
-I remember my grandmother telling me they'd go to a dance, you know, that's what they did in those days. And my old great-grandmother and her friends, they wanted to step dance, but they didn't all have good shoes. So, they have to--one take turn using the shoes. I always thought of that, that was funny. But she said that's the kind of times they had you know.
-She'd walk in, what was it, about 15 miles and they'd dance till about 11 or 12 o'clock, then she'd have to walk all the way back because there weren't any cars then.
-That's wanting to dance.
- That's the ones, yes. And we'd put them on and we'd step dance until the floorboards were ready to break in our apartment or our house. So they were kind of creaking boards. But that was a lot of fun. All the Indian students, you know, we'd have parties and get together. So that's what we'd do, sometimes step dance and jig.
Frank Boyer Jr calls out dancers, one at a time, to take a solo turn in the center of the dance circle.
Patty! Come on Patty! Marla! Robin! Carol! Davie Jo! Debbie Pine
INTERVIEWER [to a group of unidentitied women at the dance] You can sense the similarity between some of the rhythms here--
- Oh, sure.
INTERVIEWER --in this old-time music and your traditional drum music.
-Oh yeah, without a doubt. Like that really fast jigging music and stuff that's like the same music, like we scrub or do that, we call it the squaw dance song. Well, that's not very, it's a women's dance, that word just got tagged on it. But that's an old Ojibwe dance, women's dances, and it's got the same, kind of, you know, this kind of stuff as you're doing step dancing. So, the rhythm's the same to me.
LAWRENCE HOULE [teaching children to dance] Play. And there's a beat there. Hear it? Go with the music. You hear that? That's how you keep time. Okay, now, watch me. You watch me the way I do it and listen to the music.
22:36
S1 WAUPOOSE We all got that foot beat and you set your tempo in the same way with the drum and same way to dancer or the square dancing or you set your tempo, but you're always thinking, you know, in your back of your mind that this is home and we're gonna play this music and it recalls, people left us their ancestors and what have you. That's got a lot to do with it. The tempo of the music and what have you. And you take the violin--and there was a guy he went out and he was a professional Indian dancer. He toured the whole United States and he came back, my father met him one time and they got down together. This guy, and my father played a song [Indian tune title]
M WAUPOOSE Yeah.
S1 WAUPOOSE Remember that?
M WAUPOOSE Yeah.
S1 WAUPOOSE Remember this number?
M WAUPOOSE Yeah.
23;34
S1 WAUPOOSE So my dad played that Indian tune--he didn't jig he Indian-danced to that tune. So that's as far as I can express between the drum and the violin.
COLEMAN TRUDEAU There's a trick to being a step dancer too. That's between the fiddler and the step dancer. You almost have to read your minds, the vibes have to be working through one another, you know, just how this person's body's gonna react and you have to put the touch on your fiddle.
FRED ALLERY The dancer keeps time with the violin, but sometimes the speed isn't just right. You understand what I mean? The violin plays a little bit just to travel too fast, that's what the violin player gotta go by.
24:21
Mike Page and a second, unidentified, fiddler accompanying dancers. Tune title: Red River Jig.]
MIKE PAGE [demonstrates with fiddle during his explanation] I don't know why they were going through this little ritual of--you know, all we had to do was just take off. You know, when I play fiddle, I just take off and tell the guy beforehand that, which number I'm gonna play like in D chord or G chord, or C, or B flat, F or you know, any of the chords. I'll tell 'em where I'm gonna be playing and I won't, like if I'm gonna play Blue Valley, I'm not gonna go I just take off. You know, like that. But the old timers, I used to get a kick out 'em these, you know, like they want to get in play something in the F chord, you go. And that would go on for about two, three minutes, before they take off.
STEVE SOULIERE Now two years ago, me and Danny Boy Pine were invited to go and play in a theater contest in the studio. And they told us we'll never win. Why? We hold our violin right here. If you want to win, you gotta hold your violin right here.
FRANK BOYER JR [demonstrating] Difference between fiddle and violin, which is, it's about about 150 miles difference. The fiddle, you play a fiddle like. Now a violin, you play a violin.
29:39
FRANK ALLERY You see the guitars didn't come in here till in the middle forties maybe, guitar players. And that's all they ever done around here. They call it the second fiddle under bucking with another violin. When I was young, I used to do that for him, fellow by the name August Wade lived up north up here. He was the violin player you see, at all the dances before I started. I sit there and buck with him and I thought it was great, you know, for me to do that. Stay up all night, get sleepy, but still let go anyway. Yeah, that was the big deal here at one time, it was the second fiddle. Then finally when the guitars come, they just, the bucking faded away. Then they called with a guitar. We're doing C chord.
31:48
Paradise, Upper Michigan
Coleman Trudeau playing fiddle.
COLEMAN TRUDEAU That was the Lumberjack Breakdown.
Coleman Trudeau with a group of lumberjacks in the woods speaking native language and English.
- Like he was there a long before you.
- Yeah, I know that.
33:32
COLEMAN TRUDEAU I worked in the woods most of my life. It's the only occupation that I was comfortable with. I've done other types of work, but I always ended back in the logging camp. And I played a lot of music. I was very young when I started. And we even had square dances in the camp. Some men would put a sheet around them and one was, you know, four of them. So, they'd make for the women and then they'd have partners. And we had a lot of fun. Those were all clean fun, you know. No, there was no alcohol involved or nothing and we just had a lot of fun. And this used to be Saturday nights and Sundays because during the week the lights were out at nine o'clock there was no electricity then, it was all kerosene lamps. And we'd stay in the camp four or five months at a time. Come out in town and-- I played mostly in Bootleggers in Canada at that time. But we'd run outta money--or I would--and eventually I'd be broke and I'd have to pawn my fiddle and go back to camp. Sometimes I’d even pawn it to get a taxi to go back to camp or sometimes just to get a bottle. Then I'd go back to the same old thing again year after year. My whole story just about revolves in alcohol up until I was 48 years old--that was in 1973. And I think the Great Spirit had been watching over me all these years. And he probably just got tired of the way I was running my life, and the people I had to lean on was the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. Well, I can play music today without having to get drunk or anything like that. I'm at peace. So, I'd like to play this tune here. I've been playing it for quite a while, I never had no name for it. And I'd like to call it “One Sober Night in Manitoulin Island.” [Music interspersed with speech during this segment includes the tune “Whitefish on the Rapids.”.]
40:09
Wikwemikong Reservation, Ontario, Canada
FIDDLER Breakdown.
Fiddle music at a community center with dancers of all ages.
-I play there, about every Sunday. I can speak the language and I can relate good with the people there. A lot of them are my relatives, and they really enjoy it. It doesn't take very much for them to get back in the groove you'd call it, I guess, because it's the type of music they were used to when they were growing up.
Audience applauds.
-Thank you very much.
43:31
DICK GRAVELLE And it got real dark and I was scared to go home and then I remember my mother said, "You better get home before dark." And here it's way after dark and I was still there standing at the window, listening to the old man playing that fiddle in there. But when he got done, somebody else took over and I left, and I went home. Well, the first thing I did when I got home, I got out the fiddle and tried--I think I stayed up most of that night trying to see what that old guy did. But while I was in school, I had to be studying, but still that it was something else bugging me like that in my mind. And then to go to sleep at night, it's something else. And well that still bothers me yet, before I fall asleep, I imagine I hear somebody playing some tune. [Fiddle music is inserted in this narrative.]
M WAUPOOSE And we were sitting downstairs and we heard music and he had his bedroom upstairs, Alec had one room. And my sister says, "Can you hear music?" And I told her, I says, "Yeah." She says, "Oh, I says, don't scare me." I told her, "I feel spooky." I told her, "And you could hear that music, you know." I said, "There ain't anybody here that can play music." I said, "Listen," she said, "It's upstairs in Alec's bedroom." Geez. We listen. We could hear music. She said, "Let's go up there." I told her, "You go first. I'm scared." I said. So, she went up and that door was closed and there this retarded boy was in there playing that violin. He wasn't playing the music, but he was chording like, you know, and he was right in time.
COLEMAN TRUDEAU I have a cousin, name is "Sugar John" they called him. He used to be a fiddler and he told me he dreamt about this fiddler coming to visit him. And the guy played the violin and when he put the fiddle away, he started walking away and when he went out the door, he had horns on his head and--
DICK GRAVELLE Yeah. And I heard that the fiddle was a-- it was a, well that's what I heard them mention.
INTERVIEWER What did they say?
DICK GRAVELLE The devil's instrument. I guess my grandfather said that his father told him, "Don't ever bother with that instrument. And it's just no good. It's a devil in it." He said, "That's the same as drinking whiskey. You play that thing and drink the whiskey, you're playing the devil's instrument and drinking his blood." So, he said, "Leave it alone."
Church bell rings
M WAUPOOSE Alex Harvey used to go and play Saturday nights and that's against the Catholic religion in them days, to play to a dance on a Saturday night. That was bad if you were a good Catholic, you know. And his dad was a good Catholic, go to church every Sunday. And this priest heard about that, how he'd play to them big dances, you know, violin. And the priest told him, "When you come to church next Sunday, now you wanna bring your violin. I wanna look at it," he said. "Okay," he says. So next Sunday he brought his violin there and he took it to the priest's house. He gave it to that priest, and he took it, and he opened it up. "Yeah," he said, "This is a bad thing," he said. "There's a devil in that," he said. "Oh," he says. He went to the table, and he had a little ax there and he didn't say nothing. He took that violin, and he chopped it all up, chopped it into pieces. Now he says, "You don't play to no dances on Saturday night," he said. And his father didn't think anything of it because he was a real good Catholic, his dad. He didn't think anything of it. But then he went and he bought himself another violin.
48:54
Coleman Trudeau plays “Up Jumped the Devil.”
FRANK BOYER JR Anybody that plays a violin is a devil. He’s a devil within his own self. He’s strictly a devil. So I got my chum over here, it’s got his dad, it’s a devil.
Fred Allery plays fiddle for dancers.
52:10
FRANK POITRA This was hooked up. I can't play loud, I never did play loud.
INTERVIEWER What do you see in your head when you're playing a tune?
FRANK POITRA I see the dancers. I used to dance all the time. I just went blind like this about--I've been blind about 40 years now--that is, not stone blind like I am now. Hell, I can't see you sitting around here now. But before, I used to see, and I dance and everything. My favorite tunes are the first change. Well now see, I'm getting pretty old to play the breakdowns now. It's too fast for me you see. But the first change is kinda--you know what's a first change, don't you? And square dancing the second change--a little faster. The breakdown that's a fast. I like the first change, and I like them first change tunes.
Mike Page plays a dance tune.
INTERVIEWER That brings back a few memories for you.
MIKE PAGE Yep. Every time I play it. I mean, I just, you know, I could--it's like I could see the older people dancing to that and playing it and laughing and singing. It brings back memories. Yeah.
INTERVIEWER What advice would you give to a young person who wants to play the fiddle?
FRANK POITRA To never try to play a tune that you don't know all the way through. You know, after you learn anyway--after you know how--the first thing you do, you learn the chord of course, you know when you’re going to play. And then after you play, to play a tune. Never try to play a tune that you don't know it because you'll learn it the wrong way every time.
55:48
FRED ALLERY Then there was a fellow that was out here, fellow by the name of Dan Dekoro. He was really a French Canadian. He used to tell me, never changed the way that he showed me them tones, you know, like the “Red River Jig.” He said his grandpa showed him how to play the “Red River Jig.” Well, that's gotta be at least 200 years old—“Red River Jig”--on his way, the way he showed me. And I kept that up. I'll never change for nobody. I don't care how pretty it sounds the other way I won't change on account of that old man you know. He showed me how to play them and they said that what's the right way you're supposed to play 'em and that's how.
MIKE PAGE Yeah, I stick some things in there that don't belong in there. And then I probably don't put something that's supposed to be in there. But you know, when it all comes out, it's what I want to hear. And sometimes it don't come out too good.
COLEMAN TRUDEAU My advice is, and that's the advice I got from my old--my father-- was never try to play like the other person, or never try to copy another person's playing. Try to develop your own style.
MIKE PAGE Well this tune's called my version of “Road to Batoche.”
59:26
Music and square dance at the Menominee Logging Camp Museum
DANCE CALLER Square dancing was quite prevalent in the earlier days, I'd say in the '30s-- '20s, '30s, '40s, you know--because practically everybody was a musician here, you know, playing guitars and violins. And everybody knew how to square dance, you know. But it's just kind of faded away with the different types of music, let's say. And then it's never been revived, really. Okay, that's the one we're gonna do now. When you say, "Grand right and left back when you meet your own," that means when you meet your partner, you go back, start back around and go the other way see.
DANCE CALLER Yeah guys, you swing with the partner go out the way.
DANCE CALLER Come back again. "Grand right and left" means go, you know.
WOMAN First we're supposed to meet him.
DANCE CALLER Allemande left hand, right your partners, allemande left your corners. And then you go grand right--right and left--when you get back to your partner, you right left back when you meet your own, you go back around again you come back to your partner and then you promenade. First couple. Right, left through with a couple you meet, see you come through here and back. And you come back again. See? Okay, you guys have to do the same thing here. Last time I square danced, was up at South Branch and that's about 30 years ago.
Turn to your partners right and left
Turn you hand and bring them left.
Don't forget your partners arm
Dance with your partner to the left
Turn to the right and turn to the left
INTERVIEWER What happened to the caller that was supposed to be here today?
- Passed away. There's another one that's passed away quite a while ago. His name was Jerome Sanalpol. Old Joe Teller. My father called. And there were quite a few that were callers around here.
S1 WAUPOOSE This caller, he called that whole square dance in Menominee, which is incredible in Menominee language. My dad played that violin, and he sat there and my dad just sat back and played and the fellow was calling. He called that whole square dance in Menominee. And these Indians that were dancing out there, they never got over that. They never heard something like that. Oh, one more time and-- He'd sit there and call it-- call it in Menominee all the way through. Yeah, Mama. You heard that? Didn't that?
M WAUPOOSE Yeah. Hm-mm.
FRANK BOYER JR So my dad took me over there to cut hair one day and Bob used to have one of those old hand clippers. So, he sat me down on the stool, he put a towel around my neck, started cutting my hair. So, his brother come in, so they come in, they were sitting there talking. So, I'm still sitting in the chair. So next thing you know, you go and get a couple other guys and next thing, a couple guitars and a couple fiddles, and they start playing music. In the meantime, I'm sitting there supposed to be getting a haircut. So finally, anyway, these guys start playing music and forgot all about me. So, I'm sitting there with a half a haircut. Cut me only halfway. So finally, I just got up and I walked, and I went in the house, went home, my mother looked at me, "What happened to you?" I says "Well, they got playing music." I says "Forgot about me. I got half a haircut." So, I had to go back a couple days later, get him to get finish my haircut.
1:04:51
S2 WAUPOOSE That one's ended.
S1 WAUPOOSE He was telling me about his dad, my grandfather, he could be playing violin and tell a story at the same time. He’d never miss a beat. My grandfather.
M WAUPOOSE He could play violin two or three days without playing the same tune over, never played the same tune twice. That would be on 4th of July. On the 3rd of July all day and all night. And on 4th of July all day and all night. Never the same tune.
FRED ALLERY These dance hard them days, you know, when they'd dance a square dance, they did more than a jig. By God they’d kick up the dust so much you know, when you cough a little bit and you spit it, a mouth full of dirt next morning, nose full of dust.
01:06:03
Square dancing accompanied by fiddle and guitar.
Turtle Mountain Reservation, North Dakota
01:07:41
Fiddlers’ Park, Pembroke, Ontario
1:09:55
S1 WAUPOOSE My dad played, he tuned it up, you know, and sat down and grabbed that violin and he played those tunes. So, okay, my sister had it all recorded on tape. My father, you know, like I say, was deceased. And then the old Indian way is that he'll come back after 'em. Which way? All or what? So, my little nieces, and they were playing them tapes and she pushed her button and erased them all. So, okay. And Sister Chip over there and Chopper, Mama and I myself and rest of the children had some tapes too. The only tapes that are left is what Chopper's got. Gradually is going, he's taking 'em with him.
M WAUPOOSE His spirit comes and gets 'em. They say, that's really so. There was a lady sitting in a car with me and they were--that's after Alec died. He was gone. And they were playing in this dance hall. And I was sitting out in the car with this lady, and she believes in that Indian belief. And I told her, I said, and she used to chord too, she used to play piano for him. I says, "Boy," I says, "Well all Alec’s tapes are gone." I said, "Nobody knows where they are." She said "They'll never find them tapes." They said he’d come after all those tapes. He don't want anybody to have them. The Great Spirit or somebody comes and get ‘em.
FRED ALLERY I think there's about ten of 'em that I, of them numbers that I know from this old Dan Dekoro that was played 200 years ago. See, and I'm going to remember them all one of these times I practice little, I'm like, "I'll get 'em again." Then I'm gonna make a tape for this young man--Mike Kiplin's--his name and I want 'em to know them to carry it on.
S1 WAUPOOSE I have a son that is 18 years old, and I picked up—bought him a violin, or a guitar. He laid it there and don't seem to monkey with it. I got a brother that's got two boys. Nothing. They don't seem to have it. There's only one boy attempts to even look at a violin or a guitar. So, what we have-- the next generation--what you're asking me is, it'll sound bleak. All we know is that when my father handed it down. And a lot of times he'll say, "Come on rabbit play old 'Orange Blossom Special’ or one of them." Uh uh. We always stick to my father's tunes. And they'll come in there, you'll be in a local watering hole or what you want to call it there. And go on rabbit, play it, take off. You sit there and go maybe two changes and completely lost. And the younger generation, like I say, it hurts the guys so darn much that-- Oh, it ain't their fault. But I'm talking about our immediate family that we're losing my father and grandfather and great-grandfather's music.
D WAUPOOSE My father's been dead since 1972 now. And when I sit down at the piano and I do the chords that I did when he was alive, and I chorded for him--when I'm sitting there by myself playing those chords--in the back of my mind I can hear my dad’s violin music. And that's how I keep my rhythm going and keep changing my chords. And my kids tell me, "Mom, what are you doing?" I say, "I'm playing with Grandpa." And they say, "What do you mean?" I said, "I can hear his music in the back of my mind." And when I get lonesome for him, that's what I do. I sit down at the piano and I chord to all the tunes that I chorded when he was alive.
INTERVIEWER Sitting Bull.
01:15:03
MIKE PAGE Yep. One of the great chiefs. I could feel the, I'll say the spirit in me, or you know, there's spirits or something around me that, you know, especially when I'm outside on the porch or you know, playing out there, especially on the porch in the evening. I could hear, not hear, well I could hear 'em, but it's like I could feel 'em around me. I don't know. You know, the older fiddlers that passed away, well my uncles and my cousins and my grandfathers and the other old fiddlers in the mountains here.
D WAUPOOSE I had a dream. And in my dream, I was out in a field and in the field up on the top of the hill there was a little log cabin, and I could hear some violin music and guitar music coming from there. So, I went running up to that cabin and when I got up to the window, I looked in and I saw my dad and my two brothers, they were playing their instruments, and they were laughing and I pounded on the window, and I kept hollering my dad's name. I'd say, "Alec, Alec let me in." And they didn't hear me. So, I went by the door, and I kept pounding on the door and nobody would answer. And I run back by the window, and I tapped on the window again. And I kept calling their names, but they just kept on playing their music. They didn't hear me. And I woke up and I started to cry. A couple months later I saw this one old Indian lady. And I was telling her about my dream I had about my dad and my two brothers. I said, "They were playing "and I tried to get into this log cabin." I said, "And they wouldn't let me in." And this old Indian lady says, "I wanna tell you something. In the old Indian belief," she said, "if your dad would've let you into that cabin," she said, "you would've died." She says, "But they wouldn't let you in so that's why you didn't die." She said, "It wasn't your time to go and to be with them." And she said, "The old spirit says that you were left here to carry on your father's music and to play with your brothers to keep his music going.” And she said that's why I didn't die.
Lawrence Houle standing on hilltop plays fiddle unaccompanied.
01:18
CREDITS
This film is dedicated to Richard “Dick” Gravelle (1928 – 1989)
Participant photographs
Dick Gravelle, Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario
Waupoose Family, Keshena, Wisconsin
Frank Poitra, Dunseith, North Dakota
Fred Allery, Belcourt, North Dakota
Mike Page, Belcourt, North Dakota
Coleman Trudeau, Wikwemikong, Ontario
Frank Boyer, Jr., Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario
Rene Cote Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario
Steve Souliere, Garden River, Ontario
Lawrence Houle, Ebb & Flow, Manitoba
Producer/Director Michael Loukinen
Cinematographer & Editor Miroslav Janek
Folklore Consultants
James Leary
Anne Lederman
Nicholas Vrooman
Sound Recordist Matt Quast
Camera Assistant Roger Schmitz
Sound Mixer Dennis O’Rourke’
Additional Sound David Turk
Assistant Editor Jan Unger
Producers Assistants
Rebecca Crouch
Mary McCarthy
Deana Booth
Dave Ghiggia
Titles Jon R. Labby
Still Photography
Mark Nelson
Christine Saari
Community Consultants
Francis Keshena
Roger Pilon
Tom Biron
Historical Photos
Richard Gravelle Family
State Historical Society of Wisconsin
Marquette County Historical Society
Robert Carson Collection
Superior View Studio
Delta County Historical Society
Major Funding
North Dakota Humanities Council
Michigan Council for the Arts
National Endowment for the Arts, Folk Arts Program
Additional Funding
Northern Michigan University
Wisconsin Arts Board
Detroit Institute for the Arts
Our Appreciation To
Turtle Mountain Dancers
The Sugar Island Boys
Turtle Mountain Tribe
Garden River First Nation
Batchewana First Nation
Menominee Indian Tribe
Menominee Logging Museum
Sault Ste. Marie Ojibwa Tribe
Wikwemikong Nursing Home
Special Thanks To
Rep. Dominic Jacobetti
Elaine Foster-Loukinen
Walter & Becky Piehl
NMU Research Development
NMU Communications
Northern Michigan University Productions © 1991
